**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

I'd love to see pictures of the 15" and 17" laptops side by side. Not sure why that would be against business practices - BB has all kinds of computers next to each other? Maybe even the W860CU next to a M860TU?

 

Yeah, I don't understand too, maybe Justine can explain this to us. That's exactly what he said to me.

 

I think you mean Justin.

 

Can this thing run XP or not? I see everywhere ads from vendor's that is win 7 and XP compatible but then, dont see anyone with XP drivers available for download...

 

I am on Windows 7 and it takes 49 sec to shutdown and 45 sec to get back up to windows out of hibernation. I would imagine it would be quicker getting out of sleep. Your 2 minutes does seem pretty long....you may want to check your background processess and see if you have any resource hogging crap that can be causing that delay.

Not sure on this one. You may have to try vista/7 drivers in XP comptatible mode as I am yet to see any dedicated XP drivers for this laptop.

 

Windows 7 professional and ultimate have xp compatibility?
Im not sure about windows 7 drivers working on it or not.

 

Yes I meant Justin.

 

Ordered mine yesterday. Now I am just twiddling my thumbs, waiting on my Gateway 7811FX to sell and waiting for Xotic to get their chassis in...

 

Just placed the order myself for the Malibal Lotus (W860CU). We'll see how that goes, interested to see how Malibal works out. If all is well I'll be placing an order for W870CU in December, but if I run into issues I may jump on the xoticpc bandwagon. I'll definitely document the order as there doesn't appear to be much Malibal info around at all.

 

Ordered mine around 10 days ago, still have a bit over a week for it to come in(hopefully)
I just upgraded my cpu to the 820qm

 

Just finished my order from Sg a min ago lolx. Canceled my order on asus to bank in on this hope i made the right choice. Look promising can't wait man .. argh 2 weeks

 

Kk
My guess from xotic(eductional guess) is sometime in the week of the 9th it will arrive
Also, any way a poll can be added to the owners lounge about
i7 720qm
i7 820qm
i7 920qm
so we know what people got?

 

Poll added.

 

My plea. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5459828&postcount=274

 

I'm still leaning W870CU, but I do have a 860CU coming in next week, so if I fall madly in love with it before sending it on its way, I could see coming back to 15".. but it depends, I'm a simple kinda of guy.. if 15" is good, 17" must be better, right?

 

Part of me is happy for going back to the W860CU because I need the money for replacing my five aging 1TB Barracuda ES.2's with 2TB Constellation ES's.

Nobody can deny that the 17 inch screen is gorgeous. It is absolutely stunning compared to it's 15 inch baby brother. I too am a simple kind of guy and would definitely enjoy the better reasons for owning a 15 incher over the larger 17 incher.

I voted for the 920XM in the poll.

 

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive but voted in the poll. Interesting results for the i7-720QM.

 

I was almost in 720qm but upgraded

 

The votes for the 720 seems correct. The i7 processors are actually really powerful and should be more than the enough for current games. The bottleneck factor is the GPU, which we can upgrade when Nvidia releases their GT300 series. People who ordered the 820 and 920 just want the best they can spew out.

 

I agree, the real value is the 820QM, with the higher clocks and boost, and the extra 2MB L3, but for general gaming and use the 720QM will still be great. I ordered the W860CU with the 720QM, but am getting the 820QM on the W870CU.

 

I got the 820qm because I wanted to be as powerful as the q900
And 2.8ghz dual is awesome

 

I decided to go for the 720qm b/c it was 140EUR cheaper (210$). That way the W860CU was in my (student) budget.

I also think that 720qm is good enough. Maybe next year it will be changed for a new one (upgrading also the GPU).

 

There is no changing next year. The 920XM is the fastest quad until Sandy Bridge.

 

i was first under the impression that intel will shrink 45nm quad core clarksfield to 32nm, because it's just not logical to keep making at 45nm, but it seems like the current reports do not support this.

quite disappointed though, 32nm could have lower 920XM's TDP

 

32nm Clarksfield is just speculation. As far as I know, there are no Intel roadmaps indicating a Clarksfield die shrink.
While on the subject of speculation, I'm starting to think we may not see 32nm Clarksfield. While Arrandale is 32nm they moved the memory controller off the CPU die and onto the 45nm IGP(still on same package). Its possible Intel was not successful in shrinking the memory controller. If this is true, and that is a big if, then it is possible we won't see a 32nm quad core until Sandy Bridge because I don't think there is room on the package for a 32nm quad core die +a 45nm IGP/memory controller.
lol, that is pretty thin...speculation based on speculation.

 

Following my plea, I now formally fly the flag of the W860CU. It's really good to be back with the 15 inchers. I've had my fun with a 17 inch notebook, but nothing can beat the balance of power and portability. From post #274 to #282. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=423943&page=28

4,000th post and Notebook Prophet!

 

Congratz on the 4000th post. Man you are getting old on NBR. Haha. Happy to finally see you pulled the trigger on the W860CU. Like you said, nothing can beat the balance of power and portability especially on the most powerful 15incher out there.

 

I went and looked at a notebook with the 15.6" form factor and I just could not get into it! the 16:9 aspect ratio is just so weird to me, it looks ok on big screens, but when you get it down to a 15 inch notebook it looks so odd. I got the 9280 due to being afraid I would be held back by the 16:9 ratio in certain older games, and maybe I was overreacting, but I just love 16:10. I would be typing on a 8690 right now if it had the 16:10 screen, I really really hate how lately we seem to have NO options for anything cosmetic on Clevo laptops I wanted a matte 16:10 8690, that would be my dream laptop. Although this 9280 isn't shabby, it's just large compared.

 

Which 15.6 inch notebook did you look at specifically?

 

Well I know this isn't a good comparison, but it was all I could find that was the newer 15.6 inch format.
It was a decent looking HP, I didn't pay much attention to the model, but it caught my eye as being somewhat slick looking. It has the black with swirls type finish, very good looking laptop. But the first thing I noticed was how flat the screen looked, and I realize we all read left to right, and when we game we mostly look horizontally. So it makes sense in that aspect, but I sat down with it and just checked it out for a few minutes, and I thought to myself, well I guess I don't feel so bad for spending $2300 instead of $1700 due to a stupid aspect ratio! But I was really worried about not being able to have a flexible amount of resolutions at my disposal... I have ran 1280x960 on my 16:10 screens before when I had to, or whatever other 4:3 resolution there is. And then of course a lower 16:10 resolution never really bothers me much either, I adjust within 5 minutes and never really think about the bad quality. Which is a question I was wanting to ask... why can't they make more than one native resolution? ( I know that sounds retarded, but you know what I mean ) I mean yes the native cells are stretched out when a smaller res is used, but couldn't they design pre-designated cells for other resolutions? Or would that just be too expensive right now?

 

If you asked this question then you don't understand how LCD work ^^

Juste take a look at Wikipedia, you will see very quickly that it's quite impossible to have 2 native res,
or you should have screens at 19 000 * 12 000 and downscale it to the res you want ^^

But that's technically not possible right now =p

 

I have a couple of questions for the group.

To those who already have the 8960 or have seen it, how is the fan noise?

Is it suitable for a quiet environment with light use? (browsing, mail etc.) I fully expect the fan noise to increase when gaming, but I'm also curious how loud it gets when playing a game like Crysis.

Also, how are the built in speakers? Decent quality for a notebook? Loud enough for movie watching?

 

Well from xoticpc I remember a post stating that with the laptop on at full load joseph@xoticpc didnt have it bother him once.

 

Yeah.. Noise is so subjective.. Until we have someone bust out a dB meter I think we'll just have to go with "about average".

 

Waiting sucks... will this be the week??

 

Is a Iphone dB meter ok?
That I can do

 

I got my 8690 today

The only problem I noticed is the lower right corner of the spacebar not being able to space... and a strange one with my display.

When I am at the login screen (Vista) with medium brightness the right portion along my display starts to flicker. It's about the same size as the Gadget's bar and it runs vertically all the way up. If I turn the brightness up to maximum, or more near to max the problem disappears entirely. Same goes for extreme lows.

I only mentioned the login screen bit because it is most notable on that background. I tested it out on a few others, solid, multi-colored. The black hides it almost completely whereas anything with a lot going on shows it almost immediately.

It's almost like that part of my screen is twitching.. lol

 

Problems with LCD's suck, I think, as you can't easily fix them yourself. The only thing I know is that you can check your connections... maybe you'll get lucky and the problem disappears.

 

Oh I hope so...anyword from Xotic?

 

The Sager NP8690's have shipped from China and Sager should be receiving them next week sometime. Depending on how long it takes to clear customs they will probably be shipping before the end of the week.

 

Good to hear
Thanks donald

 

You might want to ask other people who receive theirs to see if it's a characteristic of the display or a defect. It makes me wonder if the LED backlighting behind that spot is having trouble with varied voltages, since full bright and full dim don't do it. How noticeable is this?

Also, I sent you a PM with a side question.

 

Sure will! don't think my iPod touch has a mic, so can't really do any testing from my end. I guess to be fair we should test them the same way.. Maybe 1.5" away from the bottom left corner, and then run furmark and just take the peak dB rating from throughout the entire benchmark? That way we can be consistent if anyone else wants to test other laptops.

That's of course if you want to, I don't think we really have any other dB ratings to compare to anyway.

 

KK will do
Already have the bench marks and I copied my games isos onto a hd
IM just going to leave it installing stuff all night.
Copying gta4 from my 2 cds was a nightmare!

 

Even subjective reports would be helpful. For instance, how noticeable is it in a quiet room (think classroom or library).

Also what is important is the type of sound. For instance, is the sound mostly from rushing air or does the fan motor have a high pitched whine. Many times, that high pitched whine is what drives people crazy.

 

Well, I guess I'm sending my 9280 back for a 8690. Honestly I was worried about the 16:9 aspect ratio in the first place, so I didn't pull the trigger on the 8690. Now after alot of research, I find my fears were unfounded, and not only that, but the dang notebooks perform like identically in games! So, to recap... I have a 12 pound beast, that I'm lucky to use half of the CPU power EVER, that is an older body style, very plasticy and bulky. There are some great things about the 9280 though, but I guess they aren't enough to win me over. Only bad thing about the 8690 is: the dang backorder time on every site is at least a week.. so I'll be notebookless for probably 3 weeks counting shipping the return, processing, ordering, then processing the 8690, and of course the shipping here. But I'll wait.

 

The fan noise is very subjective. So far it hasn't bother me one bit. Coming from a Sager NP8660 the noise to me is about the same. When all fan kicks in full blow you can hear the air rushing out but nothing screechy or whiney. But remember, the laptop has a silent fan mode and when its turned on..its about as quiet as any other laptop.

I'm continuing to enjoy mine while you guys are left out in the rain stuck on backorder.

 

So build quality wise, does it flex at all? and what is the lid like? My 9280's lid is really flexy, but the rest seems ok. Also is the power plug on the back really solid? I did like how my power plug is as big as a S/Video in, it's quite solid like that.
Oh, and one more thing: Does the i7qm overclock on all 4 cores a couple hundred mhz? or is it always stuck at 1.73ghz say on the 820 model? I swore I saw that it clocked to like 2.0ghz on the 820, and like 2.26ghz on the 920. What would the 720qm clock to with 4 cores then? Why I ask is, here in a few more years when quads are basically mainstream in games, any quad core would have an advantage over a high clocked dual core then.
I can't tell if the speakers are those little tiny ovals on the top left and right of the body? Do those get loud enough? I see the 8760 lounge is concerned with the volume put out from the laptop, and was wondering if they were the same speakers?

 

The laptops build is about as solid as it can get with just a little bit of flex on the left palmrest above the optical drive when pressed down hard. The power plug is just a tad smaller than an S/video plug but stay solid in the laptop when plugged in. The oval grilles on the top left and right are speakers. They sound about average with the normal lack of bass. All mobile i7s only turbo boost to higher speed when not all 4 cores are in use otherwise they will just stay in their base speeds.

 

Which screen did you choose? What are you impressions of it?

From what you're saying, the fans don't have a whine. So even if you don't have "quiet mode" on, would you say they are whisper quiet?

Also, how are the speakers (for notebook speakers)? Are they loud enough for movie watching or gaming?